44) Saturday the Twentieth (Midnight) – “Free
Enterprise in Action!”
The march from Nakonset Park to FCC
headquarters had begun deteriorating long before the vestiges of the mob, still
a thousand strong, reached the One World Mall around eleven – drawn, like
moths, towards its gigantic neon beacon of a blue planet with black and white
hands clasped in friendship, flickering through the misty night like the feelgood epilogue of a children’s documentary on PBS...
which also, unfortunately, would no longer be accessed after Tuesday by so
many. No more Muppets! The final breakdown began innocently enough,
as natural desires to empty bladders and refuel with beer and snacks caused
dozens, then hundreds, to detour, but overreaction by mall security and
Screaming Eagles who attempted to shepherd the newcomers onto the tail end of
the Giga-Plex holding pen in the closed CD store
resulted in scuffles and confrontations with the weary, pissed-off National
Guardsmen. Seeing order disintegrating,
Reverend Godwin hoisted his umbrella in one hand, his bullhorn in the other…
coincidentally, the very same model as that wielded by Mark Tenison
inside the store…
“OK, folks… folks?… we’re only a couple of miles from FCC headquarters. It’s a quarter to eleven, and I know some of
you want to make a pit stop, so we’re gonna resume in fifteen minutes. We’ll be heading straight up the pike for two
more miles, so you can catch up with us, easy… oughta
reach the FCC by half past midnight. Uh,
there’s a late night bus goin’ back that way,
stopping at the Hyattsville station and… uh…”
Unable to think
of anything further to say and already envisioning the chaos when the throng
tried to board that one bus, he lowered
the loudspeaker, waiting forlornly at the edge of the construction site as even
Trent Lockett bolted for the mall entrance himself. The marchers quickly merged with angry,
locked-out shoppers roaming the parking lot as the smaller stores closed early … even more quickly
exchanging complaints of degradation and disrespect once a security guard
locked the gas station restrooms… by the time Lockett reached the gate, the
Eagles had formed a human shield across the entrance, one of their number
reciting a tired mantra…
“This entrance is
closed. You wanna
television, go down that way to the CD store that’s
lit up… that’s the end of the line…”
“I don’t need a television, officer, just a meat pie from the
Baffler in the Food Court, and…” Trent added…
“And what?” growled the suspicious
mercenary.
“Uh… use the facilities, you know?”
“Restrooms are
closed except inside Giga-Plex, and those are for
customers only,” the Eagle screamed back, then warned: “Any perpetrator caught urinating in the
parking lot will be arrested, charged as a sex criminal and put on the
registry.”
“Well, I am a customer. Will be…”
The Eagle
frowned. This was not information
contained in the script that the troops had been given at the start of
deployment and, while he was mulling over whether or not to let Lockett and
another dozen marchers massed behind him into the mall, Captain Capps… deep in
disputation with Colonels Knox of the National Guard, Sergeant Mays from the
Mall and that local police Lieutenant Haberty, who’d
oozed up from Nakonset Park with the march… waved him
over. The human shield quickly crumbling
under the press of people leaving One
World, empty-handed,
Knox was less
indignant than dismissive of the situation and its human collateral. “I’ve received orders to redeploy all
Guardsmen to
“And I’m not
authorized for overtime, so our men gotta go by
twelve,” the Lieutenant chimed in, tapping his wristwatch. “Earlier, maybe, depending… Colonel, the
students are acting up in College Park…”
“As usual. But we’re District-Metro,” Colonel Knox pointed
out, “the U’s not in our jurisdiction.
You’d have to work that out with Annapolis…”
Sergeant Mays
could scarcely believe his ears. “Officers! You can’t
just leave us hanging out to dry like this… if there’s looting in DC, what do
you think is gonna happen here when
you leave?”
Knox looked down
at his watch. “Were up to me, I’d shut
down,” the Colonel advised. “Keeping the
place open late, that was his idea, right?”
And he jerked a thumb at Capps.
“Not personally
but,” Lester tried wheedling, “…Colonel, you and the local police have an
obligation…”
“To protect life and property? That’s right, Captain… and in that order,”
Colonel Knox reminded the Screaming Eagle.
“Not property, then life. We gotta be in the District in twenty minutes. Orders!
I would strongly suggest you announce you are shutting down, now; if
there’s an immediate problem, well, maybe we can help. Open up early tomorrow – fuck Sundayhours!
Otherwise, the clock is ticking…” and he looked at his watch again.
“Tick, tick,
tick,” said the police Lieutenant who, as Trent Lockett had already deduced, was
a flaming asshole.
Having heard
enough, Trent proceeded to the Food Court, a nightmare of kids and gangs and
drunks weaving out of Giga-Mart and the two liquor stores, the mighty Dominator
blasting out its runway music over the howling and snarling of fighting dogs in
the already-closed Kearsey’s Kennels being baited by
more assholes, safely behind the glass window and chainlink
fence. He ordered a meat pie from Jean-Francoís who, just for the hell of it, pushed the button
that sent the great, black face of Ghede off into a
paroxysm of insane laughter.
“Never have I
made so much money in one day,” the meat-pie mogul sighed, “and never so afraid
for my life since my parents and I sailed away from Baby Doc and the Tontóns...”
“Yeah, pretty
fucked up out there,” Lockett admitted.
Jean-Francoís shook his head, pointing through the walls towards
Giga-Plex.
“Outside, yes, mais ce
grand, télévision vampire, il
est mauvais seulement rêvé de par le Duvaliers.”
“Uh… yeah,” said
Lockett, whose French was limited to a few culinary terms, but who had also
heard his share of rumours about the Dominator’s
eerie pixillation – some possibly true, most, of
course, mere wild conjectures that people were devouring over their mobile
devices (most of which did not
podcast the news that Super Sunday would go on as always).
Sergeant Mays had finally reached Ghanoush on his cellphone, securing permission to close One
World early… a particularly painful blow to Captain Capps. Minus Knox and the local police… although a
few of Haberty’s men, in uniform, were strolling the
corridors of the Mall and the Food Court, commiserating with the proprietors of
eating establishments (and securing a few free snacks and drinks)… the
Sergeant, Capps and their respective entourages trooped back from the One World
offices at the far Southeast end (adjacent to the Sushi Palace and Mad Sam’s
Steakhouse) to Giga-Plex, pushed through the line at
its door and confronted Tenison and Big Sonny.
“Ghanoush has given orders to shut down, effective immediately. Lester heard him…”
“Captain?” tiny
Big Sonny glared at the big Screaming Eagle, as if Capps was two feet high.
“That’s what the
fuckin’ Arab said, though if you ask me…”
“I’m not asking
you,” Leland Buford Sonnenschein cut him off. “Tenison, are these
people buying, or hanging out…”
Mark
coughed. “Not so much as earlier… but
that’s probably due to inventory. We
have plenty of the high-end stuff around, but nothing these… people…”
“Well, then, I
guess we’d better close up shop and count our money…” Big Sonny decided.
“But… but,” the
Manager fairly squealed, “…my bonus?”
Sonny patted the
young fellow on the shoulder – Mark reacted as if it were like the kiss of
death that a Mafia godfather gave his least-favoured
underling. “You’ve done a good job,
son. Like the gentleman says… you gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em. Fuckin’ pansy-ass
President, goin’ public… well, Fred, we’ll just have
to hold another big sale on Tuesday,
when those old sets go dark again.
That’s the uh… twenty-fifth?
That’s the… Christmas is December, so Presidents’ Day? No, that was last Monday,Washington’s
birthday? Anything
relevant that we can hang a sale on?
A cherry tree… a cherry tree and a Dominator! Mark, go into the back and get some of those
Mexicans to bring the rest of the Dominators in here, we’ll set ‘em up together
and blow the shoppers’ minds tomorrow afternoon.”
“What about the
Oscars?” suggested the lobbyist. “This way, we get the ladies in…”
“There you go!” And Sonny
waxed sunny again. “Gives us time for
another insert in the Monday papers, too… they’re usually worthless but people
will be reading the sports sections about the game. Call Nestor first thing in the morning… I
want full pages, and if we can poach any spots during the game away from
whomever, maybe we can even do the rounds again, this time with Giga-Boyz in Hollywood costumes like… what’s that one with the
English queen and those ladies?”
“I volunteer!” Faubourg quipped and the Texans chortled, slapped each
other on the back and Mark watched, helplessly, as his dreams of wealth and
promotions began to fly away.
Outside, Reverend
Godwin had ventured a few steps towards the Mall. He raised his bullhorn and, in a trembling
voice, ventured…
“People! People? Everybody who
came from Nakonset Park… it’s well after eleven and
we ought to be resuming, we have to…”
He went no
further, for being struck from behind by Easy, wielding a cutoff poolcue, while Slim addressed him, face to face…
“Have to do nuthin’, you pathetic fake…”
“We’re here,
Reverend,” Easy added as he clocked the minister again, Godwin falling face
down in the wet parking lot while dozens watched, then turned away “And we’re goin’ shoppin’…”
“Get his money,”
Slim barked. “And lemme
have that coat, looks like it’s gonna start rainin’
again, snowin’ maybe…”
“What about me?” Easy protested.
“Wouldn’t fit you,” Slim said, straightening the
lapels of Hieronymous Godwin’s sturdy overcoat and
checking his profile in the sideview mirror of an ancient
white van. “Coat was cut for a man.”
¾ ¾ ¾
At
“Attention Giga-Plex shoppers! Attention!”
he gave it his all, despite vistas of winged Benjamins flying off into the
rainy night. “This store will be closing
early, in order to restock for tomorrow.
Please bring all purchases to the register. We will close at eleven-thirty,
sharp… the President has declared that the Ultra-high def transition has been
postponed to Tuesday…”
“That’s a Deep
State lie!” somebody shouted.
“A Russian lie!”
shouted another standee and a shoe, flying out of the line, clocked the Eagle standing
immediately to his right. Meanwhile,
Captain Capps walked down the line of expectant shoppers, counting heads. At twenty, he motioned for two of the GP
rent-a-cops to draw the velvet rope across the belly of the line, directly in
front of some fat, nerdy slob… the sort who’d probably come to the store for
game cartridges, ergo, least likely to wax violent.
“Okay, listen
up!” declared the commander of the Screaming Eagles, drowning out Mark Down Mark’s stammering explanation of the President’s action. “Giga-Plex is
closing in fifteen minutes, everybody behind this rope ain’t
getting in. You have to go home. We will be opening at ten, tomorrow morning,
plenty of time to shop…” and he turned, pasting on a hopeful but rueful smile, “ …folks on this side of the line, can’t guarantee, but you might get in. Or not, depending. If you know what you’re looking for, grab it
and take it to the registers as soon as you can…”
Predictably the slob hung his head and actually started to cry,
but angrier voices behind him resounded…
“We
been waitin’ two hours…”
“Can’t come back tomorrow…”
“Somebody’s
gotta pay
for this…”
And, like so many
vengeful lemmings, most of the line… even the hopeless ones still confined to
the CD store… remained at their positions.
Capps walked back into the store, having done his job. Big Sonny directed the Giga Grrrlz to stand and shimmy in front of the registers, in
the hope that the shoppers would be focusing their attentions on the door. He figured correctly, but also figured wrong
in that the crowd, which had begun to wander away from the line behind the
velvet rope, pushed against the windows of the store to get a better look at
the models’ backsides between short, frequent dashes to the liquor stores. And, by twenty past eleven, however, Mark Tenison was pacing back and forth beside the registers,
making life miserable for the cashiers and customers alike…
“You have to work
faster, girls… faster! Faster!
No rainchecks, no exchanges… no checks drawn on Virginia banks. Faster…”
Finally, a flummoxed Vicki Gordon appealed to the
Manager. “Mr. Tenison,
this man has a Belgian debit card. How
much is six thirty-nine forty-two in Euros…”
“Can’t take it today.”
Mark snatched the card from Vicki, returning it to the Belgian – who
stared at the crazy Americans through thick, black-rimmed eyeglasses… his lips,
broader than Mick Jagger’s, opening and closing like a beached cod’s. “Pay in dollars or come back tomorrow, sir…”
“Bah, dollars!” the foreigner scoffed, looking
down at his watch. “I haff been waiting since nineteen hundred hours… can, at
least, the lovely lady sign my Washington Times…”
“Sign his paper,
Sara,” Mark agreed after motioning over the nearest Grrrl…
and Sabra Martin replied…
“Sabra!”
“Whatever!”
Sabra scribbled
an obscenity on the newspaper and the next man in line waved a ticket,
hungrily.
“Ring me up for a
Westinghouse nineteen…”
“Don’t,
Vicki. We’re out of stock,” Mark told
him. “Come back tomorrow, and we’ll show
you something better… out with you, now…
next!”
The summary
cancellations brought Ralph Richards and two other salesmen flocking…
“Are we gonna get
our commissions on these cancelled sales?” Ralph whined.
“No. You don’t get paid until the store gets paid…
get back to work,” Tenison ordered. “Don’t sell anything under thirty inches,
unless it’s plasma…” and Mark looked at his watch, “…hell, don’t sell anything
more, period, unless they can carry it to a register. Anjie! Anjie!”
The Amazon
marched forward to confer with Tenison, then marched
back to the loading dock with Lester Capps, who ordered the Eagles and
rent-a-cops outside to form a human barrier at the end of the receiving
line.
“No more pickups
this evening past here…” Anjelika drew her line in
the line. “…if you have receipt ticket, must return tomorrow…”
Now, the angry
voices by the loading dock outshouted those at the entrance…
“What
about my Samsung?”
“Been
standin’ out here forty minutes, after waitin’ two hours to get in…”
“Wait
till I contact my lawyer…”
“What
about the game…”
Anjie, who had
been too busy to listen to the President’s announcement, merely spat into one
of the puddles generated by the light, yet intensifying rain. And, gradually, the frustration at either end
of Giga-Plex fused into a single, golden-oldie chant,
rippling the length and breadth of the Mall like an intestinal disturbance…
“Hell, no! We won’t
go! Hell,
no! We won’t go!…”
And it was at this exact, inopportune moment that Kristi Chaine and David Lee arrived at One World… Vern Cooth presumably following. The multiple small disturbances were starting
to coalesce into mass insurrection… gangs roaming the parking lot, people
screaming, answered back by penned-up fighting dogs and the great, black head
of Ghede, the Baffler; the fortunate shoppers
hastening to secure their purchases hurrying through the rain. A big, black SUV with a rolled up prize
looted from
“I told you so!”
David gloated, gesturing to the chaos all around them.
“You’re a help,”
Kristi groaned. “A real help…”
The four Screaming Eagles manning the entrance to Giga-Plex gave way helplessly as Kristi Chaine
flashed her credentials… by now, the blessed and bereft customers alike were streaming out of both the exit and
entrance doors, heedless to security’s threats and warnings, while the more
determined, more desperate forced their way in.
With David in tow, the Research Manager honed in on fat Freddy Faubourg, hanging out at the tech and credit tent (with, by
now, ten prisoners and one apparent corpse manacled to the poles) swilling
something green from a big, clear plastic cup.
Fat Freddy
rewarded her with a twinkly finger-wave.
“How’s my grrrl?”
“Ask one of
them,” Kristi nodded at the dancers, now gyrating atop Giga-Plex
cash registers as currency, checks and plastic were rung up. “I
am looking for Mr. Sonnenschein… Vern is on his way,
should be here unless he’s been caught up in this, this mess…”
“Ah, but an
exquisite mess it is,” Faubourg answered dreamily,
“…probably generating a revenue stream higher than the week before Christmas.”
“You see a
revenue stream,” Kristi scolded, “I see him,”
she pointed to a man urinating on the glass of Kearsey’s
Kennels, “and a few hundred pissed-off rioters who, thankfully, will never make
it to our headquarters…”
Faubourg sipped from his cup,
waved to Big Sonny… still at the center of the henge,
expostulating on the Dominator to a rapt handful of apparent insomniacs. The entrepreneur seemed oblivious, so Freddie
motioned to the registers and, shortly, motioned to the Grrrlz
and then, with Crystal and Rae on either arm, steered the newcomers towards Sonnenschein.
“This, dear girl,
is free enterprise in action…” he reminded Kristi.
“Some of those
people might be taking “free” literally,” was David’s sour remark.
Fat Freddie
pulled Crystal and Rae closer, as if anticipating that they might have to take
a bullet for him. “And who the fuck are you?”
Now, Big Sonny
moved to head off an unpleasantness.
“Kristi Chaine!… you look every bit as
marvelous as when I last saw you… it was Dallas, or Denver… let me think…”
“Vern is on his
way,” said the Research Manager. “He
wants to see for himself that everything’s under control…”
The clock in the
“What could be
more under control than this?”
The great Ghede-head roared again.
¾ ¾ ¾
In
Purley, Miz Lottie Soames…
secure in her capacities of having performed yet another miracle… enjoyed the
national news and weather but, as Ted Fraser called upon Evan Augsberg for a final report from outside of the One World
Mall, the household fell silent.
“Thank you,
Ted. We’ve arrived at One World Mall
with two important developments in the making.
First, the second march from Nakonset Park
after last night’s violence seems to have broken up short of its intended
destination – the Federal Communications Commission Operations Center in
suburban Maryland…”
“That’s Godwin’s bunch – failed again…”
Uncle Raoul shook his head…
To which Miz
Lottie replied: “Shush!”
“Least nobody got killed, this time…” Raoul
answered, disobediently. Yet…”
“It would seem shopping has replaced protest as the order of the
day,” Augsberg said, “and now, as midnight nears,
there seems to be no slack in demand for new MHDTV technology, despite the
President’s earlier announcement. I’m in
the parking lot with Joe Gennale, one of many
shoppers braving the crowds and elements, this evening, to secure… what’s that,
Joe…”
“It’s a Westinghouse.
Bought it ‘cause I thought it was made in
“Quite a day, Joe? What do you think of the President’s
announcement that the Superbowl will be televised…”
“Nobody told me about it til now –
people here think it’s just more fake news so we’ll shut up and go home. Pretty stupid, but I’m still glad I got in
today. Woulda
had to, sooner or later… and I wouldn’t go back there again, not for my
life. It’s crazy! Outa control… lotta
fighting…”
Miz Lottie reached for her old rotary phone and began
dialing…”
“There you have it, we’ve tried to get remarks from the Mall or
security, but they’re not talking.
Neither has anyone found out what happened to the rally organizers…” the
newscaster added, “the march just sort of fell apart, as the chance to secure a
TV or converter before tomorrow’s game proved irresistible, transition or not…”
“I can’t raise Earline,” she told Raoul. “Some recording tells me that the number ain’t in service…”
“In a funny way, the marches have achieved one of their main
objectives, even in failure and dissolution.
Here’s a latecomer, sir… what brings you out to the Mall…”
“You get in that car of yours,” Lottie ordered her step-nephew,
“go to that Mall and bring back my Earline.
I ain’t trustin’ no bus line out there… look like a moonshine party…”
“Aww, auntie…
there ain’t been no moonshine parties out here in
fifty years…”
But Miz Lottie
would not be moved. She pointed towards
the door…
“Git!”
Though it didn’t
matter to Miz Lottie, Augsberg’s
interviewee was eerily familiar, a disheveled Jack Gobelman,
eyes darting crazily around the parking lot.
The newscaster, sensing a problem, started to draw his microphone back,
but Goblin pounced, physically wrestling it away from Augsberg…”
“Getcha blueberry spies a la mode
white vanilla on red China… no more Nightline, no Lost. Cat klum a genies
on carpets, floatin’ around and they’re goin’ to the moon, all them signals running around. Never namortal,
Evan, ‘member from the Bradlee dinner, two thousand
nine… two thousand voice, say hey, Harley, what’s that
sound…”
Goblin, after
dropping the station’s microphone ahead of him like a stand-up comedian who’d
just killed, paused, picked it up and ran off into the darkness and the
rain. Shouting to be heard unamplified, Augsberg summed up… “and that’s
the way it is at One World Mall! That’s
how it stands, under that great, blue neon globe - whose brown seas and yellow
continents rotate in synchronicity with earth and sun, whose clasped hands…
black and white, brown over red over yellow… inspire us to dream better dreams,
dreams so often submerged beneath a material tide of need, and greed. Back to Ted Fraser, now, and not a moment too
soon…”
¾ ¾ ¾
Network microphone
still in hand, singing “Gabba-Gabba-Hey!”
before forgetting the rest of the words, Goblin scampered across the parking
lot towards the vacant CD store whose door and windows were now busted wide
open. Denied access to Giga-Plex, frustrated shoppers had refused to leave. They beat on store windows, roamed the Mall
fighting and looting poorly-defended shops… committing acts of grand and petty
vandalism upon property and violence against the remaining merchants and each
other while, in Mark Tenison’s office, the Law…
Captain Lester Capps, Sergeant Mays from the Mall and Lieutenant Haberty of the
local police (Guard and military having already departed)… quickly fell to
jurisdictional quarrelling among themselves.
“Do as you will,”
Haberty wagged a fat finger at the civilian police,
“my men are going off duty, and their replacements are being redeployed to
urban neighborhoods. This place oughta be shut down, now!”
“We’re trying,” Mays exhaled.
“Frankly, we’re not getting all the cooperation we should from Giga-Plex and the Eagles…”
“We’ve securing the premises, Lieutenant, and we’re doing so
with what we have. If the Sergeant can’t
get a handle on the situation outside Giga-Plex, it’s
not our responsibility…”
“Secured your
premises,” Mays snarled…
“That’s what we’ve been paid for. Tell your Arab brothers to open their
wallets, and we’ll secure the rest of the Mall…”
Meanwhile, Vern Cooth had arrived, credentials flapping in the wind;
authority hopping from his scalp like fat, white lice. Only providential intervention from Fred Faubourg had gotten him through the door and as far as the
bank of registers where cash still flowed and the Grrrlz
danced on…
“Whatta fuckin’ mess,” Vern furled
his umbrella, “…I presume Sonny knows about the President…”
“Stabbed us in
the back,” Faubourg groaned, “…Sonny’s waitin’ for you…”
They pushed
against an angry human tide of shoppers slowly being driven towards the
registers – some with merchandise in tow, many others empty-handed and angry as
news that the big items would no longer be disseminated from the loading docks
in back. In front of the henge of televisions where Big Sonny was mollifying an
angry clown over some issue having to do with money while Kristi Chaine and David Lee stood by, fuming, the Soft Shell
Dixieland Band were repacking their instruments despite some rather
mean-spirited interference from the rest of Sonny’s clowns… a few of whom
seemed kin to the notorious and murderous Pennywhistle. A Mall security guard punched a Screaming Eagle
and was promptly floored with a quick trio of karate chops while prisoners,
chained to the tech and credit tent, cheered them on. One, noticing Fred Faubourg,
spat… the spittle missing, but managing to blanket Vern….
Big Sonny was
enraged – and these losers from the FCC were a convenient target. “Your people have told me that these
broadcasts incited a mob to storm my franchise…”
David shook his
head, correcting the pugnacious hawker.
“Actually, sir, most of them were headed towards our headquarter, but…”
“Shut up, Lee…” Vern
snapped, “I’ve taken about all that I can handle from you…”
But the dissension
had already attracted the ire of Big Sonny... and the magnate chose to assume
that the FCC Manager was calling him
by his first name. “So,” he raged at Cooth,
“you admit you have people on your staff that are
trying to tear down the free enterprise system… probably working hand-in-claw
with the President…”
“That’s Trent
Lockett, he’s been fired. You’re fired,
too, Lee…” Vern decided.
“The hell, I…” Big
Sonny stepped back…
Kristi Chaine objected.
“David’s been trying to help…”
Vern shook his
head, thrust out his fist. “You’re fired
too, Kristi. Clean out your desk
Monday. Why I ever…”
“You are gonna be
so… so litigated against and…”
Too sputtering
angry to finish her threat, she watched as Capps and Mays emerged from the back
office and, still raging, crossed the store.
Before they could reach the firing party, there was a crash, and all
heads turned towards the registers where some nut in cutoff jeans and a white,
cutoff t-shirt under a down vest had hurled a trashcan through the big plate
glass window and crawled in after; ranting and bloody, like a great, white
bloody grub… when security flocked to surround him, a few shoppers bolted for
the exit with unpaid-for merchandise.
“Can’t anybody
around here do their job?” Big Sonny
wailed.
In the parking
lot behind the loading dock, customers… some still waving receipts… shouted and
shoved back at the Screaming Eagles as Craig Synch and the Mexicans pulled down
the metal security gates while Marko, on the outside, slipped a padlock through
the slots as the crowd realized that he was part of the hated Giga-Plex establishment, swarmed and dragged him down while a
score of angry ticketholders turned their wrath on the Eagles’ van, rocking it
like a porta-pottie…
Back in the
stockroom, Anjelika approached the cherrypicker, climbing halfway to hail Tom Eppert…
“That was good
work, Mr. Tom…”
“I can handle
myself…” Tom said, with no little pride, giving Big Sonny’s deputy a closer
look – though somewhat mannish, he figured that the big rootin’-Teuton
from Waco seldom got tired, Nancy’s favorite complaint.
He smiled
broadly, tipping his helmet.
“We have a
certain problem closing down the store when some people do not want us
closed. But we must close,” Anjelika appealed to him…
“Those gates
outside the windows?” he ventured.
“I assemble a
team, and Captain Capps protects us with men, and his
guns…”
Tom let his hands
fall into his lap. “What’s in it for
me?” he inquired.
“Twenty dollars
off that set Mark gave you…” Anjelika offered,
“He didn’t give
me anything, I earned it. And I’m gonna
pay him…” Tom promised.
“Well, you get a
payment off. I’ll speak to Mark…”
“You do
that. Yeah… and I’ll do that. OK, you got a deal…” and Tom prepared to
climb down. “Details… well we’ll work
those out later, just remember… you owe me, and a helluva lot more than a Jackson.”
So, while a
couple of armed Eagles held the mob roaming the Mall at bay, Tom joined Anjelika and the Manager, a couple of burly salesmen from Appliantology and Jurgen of 007
in drawing down the metal gates, pulverizing two hands, a forearm and an ankle
thrust between gate and concrete floor.
Curses flew off their backs like raindrops. As descending steel covered the broken
window, two drunks rushed the crew and, while sweating, grunting Eagles pulled
them away, Mark Tenison assumed a pose, declaring…
“I know karate…”
Capps, seeing
things under control, more or less, returned through the security door in the
gate over the entrance, only to be assailed by Big Sonny.
“That’s a dead
guy there, cuffed to my property. Get
him out of here before he starts to smell!”
So, with only the
Exit gate remaining up, Tom helped Capps and two other Eagles finally decuffed the corpse from Westy’s
pole… dragged the damn thing to the threshold and flung it out into the
Promenade, quieting the crowd long enough for Lester to pull down the gate,
affix the padlock, and return to the store via the security door, followed by a
silent, battered Marko Mosrovich, who’d finally
navigated his way back from the parking lot.
The clock in the
Food Court tolled midnight. And the Dominator… now tuned to an infomercial… radiated on,
hypnotizing those inside and outside the store.
¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾
VISIT THESE OTHER GENERISIS SERIAL ABOMINATIONS…
THE GOLDEN DAWN BLACK HELICOPTERS